Rosary
by Yardil
Summary: Left alone with a stranger after a battle, it was possibly one of the strangest rosaries that she had ever taken part in. It was also her last.


**Rosary**

It has often been reflected that people who claim to 'feel eyes in the back if their neck' are nearly always paranoid. In the case of Maddy, it was actually a realistic response to her sister's… obsession with her. This time, however it felt different. That may seem a rather odd concept to anyone who has not been stalked by their long-dead sister but the figure now pursuing her felt… malevolent in nature.

It should now be noted that Maddy was one of those lost souls who wandered on the outskirts of society and, having been thus dehabilitated, she had resolved to hate the world in general and everyone living in it in particular. The way she did this was by never talking to anyone, if someone resolved to talk to her, being polite and then ending the conversation as soon as possible, and living in a semi-solitary state plotting ways to kill her sister.

Now, as she walked through the crowded streets, she was worried. She had been prepared, in an ironic way by the Parish Priest at the wake of her sister's funeral, to fight her sister. She had not, however, considered the possibility she would have to fight another form of sinister nightmare in the form of a being she couldn't justify killing. Not that it was hard to justify killing anyone, even the innocents that paraded in front of her; she supposed God would probably mind.

She picked her way through the crowd carefully, cautiously, unsure if she wanted to lose this foe or draw it to some unknown location and kill it (or, given that it was dead already, remove it of a physical incarnation). She still had not decided when she realised she had somehow ended up at the church, with the graveyard that held her sister's empty grave inside it. She paused a second, lost in thought and entered.

The rusted iron gate squeaked noisily as it opened and she winced inwardly at the sound, knowing it removed the chance of escape. Maddy walked confidently up to the old wooden door and pushed it aside with a hand. It too, creaked and groaned as it moved on ancient joints. The church, as would be expected, was empty. No one came here anymore. The vicar died, bloodily, less than a year ago, thanks to her undead sister. Somehow the sight of his mutilated body strewn across the altar had discouraged the congregation who had then disbanded.

She walked slowly into the church, disturbed as always by the memory of the funeral, its wake and what had been revealed to her there. She passed each pew with increasing misgivings and paused and, for the briefest possible instant, knelt before approaching the altar, as was proper. Although no longer adorned with altar-cloth, the stone slab still held remnants of religious potency and she reached out to touch it with trepidation.

The church door slammed shut behind her. She flinched, looking down to check her weapons were still at hand. The outline of her cross could just be seen beneath her black hooded jumper, not very useful at this point. Hanging side by side on her belt were the silver dirk and the hip-flask full of holy-water that had been gifts from the vicar. In her pocket was a rosary. And a gun.

She turned to face the unknown foe with a self-disciplinary smile. She grabbed the dirk as she turned, figuring it would be as good a chance as any. Her sister stood facing her, hardly a mirror image of herself with bright red hair instead of Maddy's placid brown. Their skin was similar: palest white, deathly, but otherwise they could not have been considered at all alike. The air between them stretched for eternity. Maddy, unsure of what to say, shifted awkwardly on one foot at a time. "A good evening to you, sister mine," Claudia greeted her, giving an elegant curtsy. "Cherish it well, for it shall be your last."

Maddy merely smiled, "At least I won't have to come back like you; a slimy, disgusting parasite."

Claudia bowed and leapt forward, gun in hand. Maddy ducked to one side, disappearing behind the organ, which was presently shot to pieces. A fragment of pipe glanced past her head, slicing across her forehead. She ran, ducking into the door to the vestry. She heard her sister slowly pick her way past and hastily quieted her heart.

Her sister's footsteps ceased, and Maddy chose that moment to dash out, hoping to reach a more escapable position, namely toward the back of the church near the door. She got about five steps before Claudia shot. The first bullet flew wide and by the time the second came she was alert. She ducked and dodged, weaving her way through the pews, back to the aisle. Claudia stood on the altar, a mocking smile on her face.

"This is where poor Father Martin met his demise. Care to join him?" she yelled, her voice echoing off the cold stonewalls and magnifying.

"No thanks," Maddy said, almost silently, raising her gun to aim at Claudia. She pulled the trigger. Claudia jumped, propelling herself upward onto one of the beams that supported the ceiling. Maddy stared at her, the blood pounding in her head. She was moving blindingly fast, jumping from one beam to the next, closing in. Maddy backed off, trying to reach the door once more. She passed the last pew and turned, making one last dash to the door. She held out her hand to reach the handle and felt herself jerk back. Her hand went to her neck, feeling the razor-sharp garrote wire tangled with the leather cord that held her cross. Claudia jerked the wire once more and she felt her feet leave the ground. She heard her sister's cruel laugh echo behind her and thanked God for her cross, which had prevented the wire from disembodying her.

"Now, It's time to bow your pretty little head and die like your father." The hate that she heard in her sister's voice made her shiver. She grappled with the wire, using her dirk, eventually breaking the wire.

She fell with a thump. Maddy rolled onto her feet and drew her gun, shooting Claudia in the leg. Claudia toppled and fell, landing on her feet on the altar. "Come on up and die, you stupid, inbred wretch!"

"You're a fool and a coward." Maddy yelled back.

"Toad!

"Cold-blooded fiend!"

"Ugly, venomous witch!"

"You're pitiable, the very depths of hell found you disgusting and spat you back!"

Their pertinent and entertaining discussion was interrupted at this point in this manner: a man dressed all in red with a disturbingly out-of-fashion hat perched jauntily atop his head pushed both doors aside with an overly dramatic action. The fight then took on a rather peculiar turn. The aforementioned man fought them both, attacking with a vampire's speed and strength. Maddy fought for her life, blocking each continual blow against her with the dirk and countering, when she could, with a shot from her gun. Her sister attacked her with vigour, blocking the man's attacks when they came at her.

Maddy brought her dirk to bear against the black gun of this unknown aggressor and attempted to shoot his other hand off. This failed, mainly due to the fact she was out of bullets. The attacker jeered at her, revealing his frighteningly white and pointed teeth. She hit him with the rifle and spun away. He pursued her and she fumbled inside her pocket, grabbing the only thing that remained in it; the rosary.

She turned, prepared, only to find he was now violently engaged with her sister. Claudia stumbled and he closed in for the kill; shooting her three times in the stomach, once in each hand and once in the foot. The resulting shock sent her flying into the wall behind her, where she lay crumpled in a heap.

Now he turned on Maddy, his eyes glinting behind yellow glasses which she translated as 'you've seen too much; you have to die'. He leapt forward to meet her and she trembled in fear. He kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying in a similar motion to her sister and hitting the wall with a painful crunch.

The next second was very much a whirlwind of pain. She blinked and regretted it the next instant, when she had to open her eyes again. His face hovered in front of hers. The difference in their position was marked: his feet were still firmly planted on the ground whereas she was pushed up against the wall. The floor looked to be so great a distance from her feet it would kill her should she fall.

In addition to the fact she was much more compromised than he was, she also had been shot several times: once in the shoulder, twice in the side and once in her thigh. The cut she'd received to the head during her earlier fight with her sister was trickling blood down her face and she felt like the garotte was still choking her.

She was at a loss; no bullets, she'd dropped her dirk and somehow this vampire had managed to pin her against the wall so that she could no longer reach the vial of holy water. So in that moment, she did two things that would make every exorcist in the world cringe in embarrassment: she kicked him in the groin and flung her rosary with all the might of a kitten. Despite the fact both moves were unorthodox, one at least had the desired affect. She fell to the floor with a soft thump and waited for his retaliating blow.

It didn't come. Maddy sat up and saw what was now the third person to interrupt standing in the doorway. She groaned, holding her head in her hands in a gesture of defeat. Back when it had just been Claudia she was fighting, she might have had a chance. Now however, she was faced with the high possibility she would soon have to fight one of the two overly tall men that were currently advancing on each other in the middle of the room.

They thankfully paid no attention to her, instead passing the time by ripping each other to pieces. What she now had to think of as her vampire used the same two guns he had employed against her against the other man, who used mainly bayonets and smaller things that looked equally sharp and painful. They yelled insults at each while they fought. Neither one tired, in spite of the fact they were blindly accurate, often severing arms or shooting bullets into the head.

Maddy struggled with her hoodie, eventually pulling it over her head. Her weakening body groaned in protest as she laboured to cut strips from it to cover her bleeding shoulder and stem the stream of blood from the gash in her forehead. She felt a sudden resistance; saw the edge of a boot out of the corner of her eye and glanced up. Her sister stood in front of her, blocking her view of the fight and at the same time standing on the edge of her hoodie, preventing her from cutting away bandage.

She could no longer see the men fighting, but the periodical clashes of steel on steel and the gunshots suggested they were. She jerked backward, crawling to the relatively secure wall. Claudia pursued her by taking a step forward. Her eyes narrowed as she read the bright red text on Maddy's t-shirt.

"'My sister went to HEAVEN and all she sent me was this lousy t-shirt'." she spat. "You wish."

Maddy held Claudia's blood-red eyes with her tear-filled ones. "Yes," she said simply. "I do."

Claudia snarled in an animalistic figure of hate. She cocked her gun, pressing into the side of Maddy's head, right onto her wound that was still bleeding heavily. It was excruciatingly painful, beyond anything she had experienced before. Maddy felt her fingers brush the hilt of her blade and she closed her hand around it, trying to muster the strength to throw it. Claudia smiled, feral and brutal, forcing the butt deeper into her head, making her scream in pain.

The world seemed to slow. Claudia pulled backward, thankfully removing the cold, painful metal from Maddy's head. Maddy could no longer hear the sounds of the other fight; perhaps they had killed each other. Claudia's face seemed to twist in desperation. She bolted, smashing through a stained glass window out into the outside world. A second later, a red flash followed her in swift pursuit, leaving Maddy in a state of some confusion.

She heard a dull 'thud' as a long silver blade struck the wooden pew closest to her. It was still some distance away. Maddy sat with nearly the whole church obscured by the great stone slab of the altar, preventing her from seeing who had thrust it into the pew. She felt frantically for the hilt of her dagger. Looking down at her hands, she saw blood. She heard footsteps and hurriedly hunted for the holy water.

"What have we here? Another dirty heathen." She tensed as the speaker appeared in front of her. His hair was blond, his face honest. His eyes were a bright green, framed by round glasses. His left check bore a thin scar from some unknown battle but otherwise his countenance was free from the wounds and worries a fight normally inflicts. She felt her neck scream in protest as she gazed up at his excessively tall personage.

Her right hand successfully freed the hip flask with her holy water. She hesitated; she hadn't had much experience with vampires but she doubted they often called innocent women 'heathens'. Wasn't 'lost, little kitten' and 'naïve, young flesh' more their line? She didn't want to kill anyone unnecessarily or waste her limited supply of holy water.

Then again, on reflection, it was safer to throw and waste the holy water than try throwing the dirk and risk killing an innocent. She raised the flask to her lips in an imitation of drinking, feeling herself cringe as his eyes narrowed, knowing he thought she indulged in some elicit substance. She pressed her finger on the stopper, trying to think through the step-by-step procedure she'd need to carry this off. She needed a fluid motion: she pressed down hard on the catch, forcing it back. In the next instant she moved the flask down until she held it at chest level.

"One last drink?" Maddy asked, wondering if she should have slurred her words. "Before I go to join my fa-father." Her voice trembled as she remembered the horrid scene of twelve months past. She felt tears once again wet her cheeks as she jerked her hand upward, sloshing her precious holy water across the clothes and face of her foe. She flinched as the blessed liquid drenched his skin.

Her eyes remained closed until she heard a soft chuckle that quickly became a thunderous, maniacal laugh. Her mind rapidly adjusted to the knowledge he could not possibly be undead, causing her to give wonder to the fact he had survived an ordeal with the male monster and how he had come to be following her stalker's stalker in the first place.

She didn't want to kill a human, but that didn't mean for a second she expected the human not to kill her. Maddy heard his slowly advancing footsteps and felt for the silver cross that her father had given her. Her movements were slow and she recognized that she wouldn't be able to move, even if he spared her. She found the cross and clutched at it, never wanting to let go of the small silver thing that was her only remaining link to her lineage.

The steady pace he set as he advanced stopped. She heard the clinking of beads and opened her eyes. He held in his right hand a bayonet and in his left was her rosary, twisted nearly beyond recognition and cracked.

"May I?" she croaked. He stared at her and passed the rosary into her upturned hand.

She let it run through her fingers until she found the crucifix. This she brought to her lips, prior to bowing her head and pressing it against her brow. Her hands moved almost instinctively, forming the time-honored signs of the trinity. "In the name of the Father," she whispered feeling the increasing need to finish what she had started, "and the Son and the Holy Spirit." She knew what she had to say, even before she began to ask.

"Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Forgive the shortcomings of Father Martin, who could not uphold even the most sacred of his vows to you. Take as penance for his sins the life of this the most unworthy of your children. Amen." Her eyes were closed, so she could no longer see what he was doing. Had she been able to see him she might not have recognized him to be the man she had feared not long before. His head was bowed, out of respect for her appeal perhaps. He looked almost kind.

She did not know what he was doing so she felt for the first bead of the rosary. Her voice shook with emotion as she began "Our Father, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen."

She thought she heard his feet walking away so she started on the next bead. Unable to open her eyes to see for herself, she continued. Three Hail Mary's, a Glory be to the Father then she announced the first mystery, choosing to use the Sorrowful mysteries, as they seemed most fitting. She had finished that and moved on with her ten Hail Mary's when he returned.

Maddy could not see him; her eyes were still shut as if she expected to be struck down at any moment. He knelt beside her, putting the bowl he carried on the floor next to him. He picked up the hastily cut bandage she had made out of her jacket. He soaked it in the bowl and began to wash her forehead with it. His gentle touch startled her. She opened her eyes abruptly and saw his body above hers, basically everywhere around her. She realised she had cut short her prayer and hastily began again, this time continuing in Latin. "Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen."

He continued to clean her wound, without even seeming to notice her. He finished his work as she began her second Our Father, after announcing the Second Mystery. She paused with him for a second, wondering what had happened that so drastically altered her situation that now her enemy was cleaning her wounds. He put the cloth he had been using aside and picked up a second. He pulled her t-shirt back to reveal her shoulder in all its blood-spattered glory. She picked up the words of the rosary once more and he began to clean her shoulder in the same manner he had her head. The pair carried on in this manner for some time. She had completed the Second and Third Mysteries while he had been cleaning her wound, her now automatic recital of prayer somehow helping to distract from the pain. Now he cut a strip from the jacket, with which he bandaged her wound. His hands were soft, his touch cautious and yet… each time he touched her skin she was tempted to shy away, to hide.

He had stopped. His work was finished, as was the Fourth Mystery, she waited for him for a moment then announced the Fifth and final Mystery. She felt his eyes on her and faltered, stumbling over the beginning lines of the Our Father and blushed in shame. He picked up where she left off: "fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo et in terra…" She looked up at him in gratitude as she joined him at "Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie,"

He smiled back at her, completing the surreal moment by making her heart skip a beat in time with the communal prayer. She felt sudden nausea wave over her and broke off, half way through her first Ave Maria. Her hand went to her side, touching a wet, sticky substance that could only be blood. He pulled her hand away. He pulled her hand away and hissed. She looked down and saw the mangled bullet-hole that tore through her body.

She sensed his uncertainty and tried to make it easier by tugging at her shirt with her free hand. He still wavered but seemed to overcome his doubt. Together they pulled the shirt over her head; he folded it and put it to one side. Maddy watched him, wondering if this seemed as strange a situation to him as it did to her. If he was troubled by the intimacy of their position he didn't show it, returning to the task of cleaning and bandaging her wounds with a practiced air.

The silence that once again had taken root between them was interrupted only by the soft lapping of water against the rim of the bowl he used. She blinked, the basin he was using looked remarkable like the baptism font that was normal fixed to the ground at the back of the church. Maddy clenched and unclenched her fingers: this man was impossibly strong, he could hardly be considered human and yet…

Her brooding was interrupted when he spoke. "Where else?" he asked roughly. She put a hand on her newly bandaged side, realising as she did so that it was strangely reassuring to hear his thick Scottish accent once more.

"My-" This time it was her turn to appear uncomfortable, looking to one side and blushing, "my thigh." She whispered mortified to even think about how he would treat that wound. She turned to look back at him, twisting her body until it hurt, trying to meet his gaze indirectly, if that was even possible. He stared coolly back at her, without ever flinching, showing perhaps the side that he has revealed early on, the darker side.

"May I?" He asked smoothly, placing his hand on her knee in what should have been a reassuring gesture. Maddy felt a cold, squeezing hand around her heart. She twisted away hiding the tears that were slowly rolling down her face. "What's the matter?" he asked, withdrawing the hand lest it cause offence. She shook her head, unable to voice her shameful discomfort.

His fingers clutched her cheek, forcing her head to turn back until she met his eyes. "Tell me." He said, his voice almost chilling. It was slightly reminiscent of talking to a severe headmaster, when he asks if there's something going on at home. She was instinctively inclined to say 'no' but his eyes bore into her, bringing 'seeing into her soul' to mind.

"I-" She stopped, regretting mentioning, nay, thinking it and attempted to force her way out of his iron grip. He forced her down, waiting patiently until she gave in. Maddy cowered when she saw his face. He looked less-than-impressed at her antics. She drew breath, gradually. "I just wondered if he'd asked my mother…" She trailed off, remembering herself once more. His eyes fell on her right hand, which was turning her silver cross over and over again. "Where did you get that?" His voice was suddenly harsh and intense. She blinked, what had happened to the rosary that had been last seen there? She searched and found it, barely three inches from her leg and began to examine the cross speculatively.

"My father gave it to me, the night he died." Her voice was soft, her words intense with sadness. His reaction was inexplicable, almost like he'd forgotten something, and had think back to remember what.

"What happened to him?"

"A year ago, when my sister died, the celebrant at her funeral asked to see me privately after the service. What he said then shocked and appalled me, what happened the next day… " She quivered as the brutal images flashed before her eyes once more. "I found him there." She lifted her hand to indicate the think beam of wood directly above the altar stone. "His body had been drained of blood. It was I suppose, ironic, my sister had taken great lengths to make it – ah – reminiscent of the suicide of Judas Iscariot. There was something of a confession written on the altar in blood."

"What did it say?" He gripped her arm tightly, his voice equally tense. She closed her eyes, visualizing the gory picture that was burned into her memory for all time.

"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. 30 years past, I took advantage of a married woman of the clergy. She was young, her husband engaged in the civil war. Her beauty was too much to resist even for a man of the cloth. She had a daughter, aged five, but I took no heed, caring nothing for her pleas for mercy. She bore my child nine months later and took her life a year after that. Her daughter seeks revenge for my sins; she shall rightly wipe my bloodline from the earth. My daughter shall not live past this week, now she has been damned."

"What was his name?" He looked severe, as if the acts of desecration performed inside this selfsame church were his to scorn and abhorrence. His face, his expression _scared_ her. She didn't know what to do, in the face of such rage.

"Father Martin Reynolds." she whispered, closing her eyes, expecting the death she had long been awaiting, thinking perhaps he liked to torment her, to keep her alive for some kind of sick self-gratification. Once again she was disappointed. He had stood and moved away from her. He was turned so his back faced her, which only served to increase her anxiety.

"Sir?" she asked, wondering what the correct turn of address was for a complete stranger who had half-stripped her and bandaged her wounds. "Are you okay?" She almost instantly regretted opening her mouth and coming up with such a moronic line. She stood, hoping to do something slightly more effective, fell over and gasped in pain as her thigh collided with the cold stone floor.

She expected him to come to her aid, which he did, crouching beside her and lifting her effortlessly into the air. He was so very tall; being in his arms almost gave her vertigo. He bent his head to consider her and their lips met, something she couldn't merely ascribe to chance. Maddy felt overwhelming affection toward this man, whom she had only just met, and whose name, background and, most importantly, marital status were unknown.

His cheek peppered with stubble pricked her soft skin as they kissed. He pulled away, feeling the wet of tears on her cheek. "That was love." His voice was muted, his words matter-of-fact. "I'm sorry you never knew it until now." His eyes were severe, distant and almost miserable. She herself was a tumult of emotions; fear, panic and wretchedness were among them but not making up the entirety. Confusion was there, an overwhelming feeling of soaring joy counter parted by sudden rushes of inexplicable depression that half-constricted her throat with their ferocity.

Maddy swallowed briefly, as the elation of the kiss faded, leaving her with the pain of the long-forgotten wound. "I'm dying," She whispered, letting the calm of finally admitting her fate wash over her. He said nothing, which she took as agreement. She felt him lower her to the ground once more and sighed in relief, more because the cold stone was now somewhat familiar whereas being carried in a stranger's arms was a new situation, one that she suspected would not be considered 'normal'.

He propped her up against the wall and sat alongside her, holding her weak hand in his. She reached for the rosary that had lain discarded on the floor for sometime. Maddy felt her body weakening with every move, something that was no doubt due to the blood loss. She closed her hand around the beads and clutched them to her chest, with only half an idea of what she'd do.

"Sancta Maria, Mater Dei," she breathed, wondering how it was she'd lasted so long on borrowed time, every second more blood eking away from her body. He closed his hands over hers, running the beads through her fingers until they reached the tenth-last, around which her fingers, with help from her stranger closed. His rough voice joined her weak one for the last leg of what was the strangest rosary she'd ever prayed.

With each Hail Mary her breathing became more ragged, her fingers colder and her voice weaker. By the seventh he was forcibly manipulating her fingers across the rosary, by the ninth her voice was near inaudible, the gaps between each line long distances, at the ends of which mountains loomed, taunting her, tempting her to give up.

When the final Hail Mary came it brought with it a sense of closure. She had devoted the last hours of her life to the completion of the prayer; she had commenced it with the expectation of being struck down at any moment, never intending to finish it. Now, as the last seconds of her life ticked steadily away, the rosary had become her obsession, her lifeline, in finishing it, she prepared for death in a spiritual way that was somehow amplified by the presence of the figure beside her.

She began to slowly stutter out the final verse. "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum."

Beside her, the stranger muttered out a translation, talking through the ultimate meaning of the prayer. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,"

"Benedicta tu in mulieribus," Each line took an age.

"Blessed art thou amougst women." He smiled at her, meaning that less in the sense of the prayer and more in the sense of her. She blushed and lost her lines, amazed that with the world so cold and dark she had the good fortune to find a benevolent stranger and that so close to her death she had fits of maidenly shyness. "Et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus." He prompted gently.

"Sancta Maria, Mater Dei," She gushed, embarrassed.

He smiled in a forgiving way, "Holy Mary, Mother of God."

"O-ora pr-ro nobis peccatoribus, nu-nunc," She could hardly move now, death encroached from all sides, the only light his presence and consoling speech.

"Pray for us sinners now." He said solemnly watching her face constrict with the pain and seeing the signs of an impending death

"E-et in h-hora m-mortis n-nostra-ae." As the final syllable fell from her lips her eyes closed in contentment. The rosary slipped from her fingers, colliding with the floor with a series of chinking sounds. Her body, limp, fell onto his shoulder. Breathing a final, lingering sigh she slipped from consciousness and died.

It was sometime before he spoke, softly completing their communal prayer with the last translation, "and at the hour of our death." He stood, the light of the grey dawn holding no warmth as it peeked through the windows at the desolate scene. He prized the rosary from her fingers, pressing it to his bowed forehead in silent lamentation.

"Amen."


End file.
